Prescott College Spring Edition of Transitions

Transitions Spring 2014

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Page 16 of The Charter Catalog of Prescott College, September 1966

1966 SOCIETY Prescott College opened its doors in the fall of 1966. Cost to attend in the inaugural year was $2,500, including tuition, room and board, and various fees.

You can still give $2,500 or more to the Annual Fund for Academic Excellence and become a charter member of the 1966 Society.

Join Anne ’74, Betsy, Carol, the Cleo A. Bluth Charitable Foundation, Dan, James, Jesse ’75, JoAnn, Josh ’97, Judith, Julie, Kate, Lake ’75, the Leo and Rhea Fay Fruhman Foundation, Lisa ’75, Linda, Margie, Michael ’78, Norman, Peter, Richard ’73, Rod, Sam ’90, Sue, and Tillie ’07.

To give to the Annual Fund for Academic Excellence, visit AF.kintera.org or mail to Prescott College Advancement Office, 220 Grove Ave., Prescott AZ 86301

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Call us. We’d love to hear your feedback (928) 350-4506

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Cover photo: Rock Climbing and Geology Spring 2008, by Matthew Hart ’11; word cloud by the Prescott College Community

Transitions Magazine Prescott College 220 Grove Ave. Prescott, AZ 86301

TransitionS Publisher Marjory J. Sente Editor Ashley Mains Designer Miriam Glade Contributing Writers Joel Barnes • Jerri Brown • Jen Chandler • Joan Clingan Anita Fernández • Zoe Hammer • Rich Lewis • Erin Lotz Ashley Mains • Candace B. McNulty • Mary Poole Marj Sente • John Van Domelen • Jenn Weaver Staff Photographers Robert Carnahan • Denise Elfenbein • Miriam Glade Ashley Mains • Travis Patterson Photo Contributors SPC Allstrom • Walt Anderson • Association for Experiential Education • Joel Barnes • the family of Bill Beckwith Dan and Sue Boyce • Jada Boyd • Gregory Brodie Keith Cross • Michelle Devilina • Environmental Protection Agency • Anita Fernández • Kyle Fouts Jr. • Christopher Glade • Dean Goehring • the family of Doug Hanson Matt Hart • Eva Hernandez • Todd Miller • Mary Poole Prescott College Photo Archive Prescott Creeks • the family of Maria del Rosario Riojas • Anita Scheelings Stephen Smith • Bill Timmerman • the friends of Elle Metz Titre • Diana Uribe • Jenn Weaver Vice President for Institutional Advancement Marjory J. Sente (928) 350-4509 • msente@prescott.edu For Class Notes and address changes, contact Marie Smith • msmith@prescott.edu Send correspondence, reprint requests, and submissions to: Ashley Mains Prescott College 220 Grove Ave., Prescott, AZ 86301 (928) 350-4506 • amains@prescott.edu Transitions, a publication for the Prescott College community, is published two times a year by the Office of Institutional Advancement for alumni, parents, friends, students, faculty, and staff of the College. Its purpose is to keep readers informed with news about Prescott College faculty, staff, students, and fellow alumni. Transitions is available online at www.prescott.edu. ©2014 Prescott College Prescott College reserves the right to reprint materials from Transitions in other publications and online at its discretion.

Prescott College is committed to equal opportunity for its employees and applicants for employment, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, creed, sex or sexual orientation, age, disability, marital or parental status, status with respect to public assistance, or veteran’s status. This policy applies to the administration of its employment policies or any other programs generally accorded or made available to employees.

Contact Admissions at (877) 350-2100 • admissions@prescott.edu For the Liberal Arts, the Environment, and Social Justice

WWW.PRESCOTT.EDU

Contents 7 10 12 16 18 20 22 25

Certified:Veteran Supportive Moral Monday Movement Information and Power in Maasailand Dedicated Social Justice Faculty Social Justice Education at PC A Parent Perspective: the Boyces Student Profiles: Social Justice Register for Alumni Reunion 2014

Departments 3 23 26 28 29

College News Class Notes Faculty & Staff Notes The Last Word: Border Patrol Nation In Memoriam

GIVE A GIFT AND

WIN A TRIP to PRESCOTT For your gift of $25 or more to the Prescott College Annual Fund for Academic Excellence made from January 1, 2014, through June 30, 2014, your name will be entered into a drawing for a two-night, three-day stay in Prescott with $250 provided for travel expenses.

Prize is transferable. Some restrictions apply.

What’s Your Transitions Preference?

The Advancement Office is always looking for ways to streamline its processes, save money, reduce paper waste, and improve communications with you—the friends and alumni of Prescott College. So tell us: Do you like getting a printed copy of Transitions through the mail, or would you prefer to be notified when an electronic version is available?

Let us know at:

http://Transitions.kintera.org

Interim President John F. Van Domelen, 2014

President’s Corner I have been fortunate to lead a life out of the ordinary. Many of my core beliefs have been informed and molded by issues of social justice.

My mother was born and lived in Cuba until she left for the States to attend Kalamazoo College in Michigan. There she met my father, who was from a Dutch community north of Grand Rapids. They married when she graduated several months before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

My father was called into military service after my mother became pregnant, so she returned to Cuba to be with her family. As WWII was ending my mother and I reunited with my father, and the family eventually settled in Falls Church,Va. When I was ten years old my parents sent me to Cuba to spend a year with my abuela (grandmother) so I could get to know my relatives. I spent the fourth grade in a completely racially mixed school, a far cry from what I had seen in Virginia. Growing up seven miles outside our nation’s capital, our school system was completely segregated, which seemed very strange to me after my experience in Cuba. Most of the janitorial and cook staff were black, but none of their children were enrolled in our schools. My mother taught first grade locally, and I observed that she was one of the few adults who took the time to interact in a meaningful way with the janitors and other support personnel.

At the age of 14 I began to take the bus into downtown Washington, D.C., to search for old pulp science fiction magazines in used bookstores. I had inherited my mother’s Cuban features and tanned very darkly. After being sent to the back of the bus several times, my smart mouth got me into a bit of trouble. As I boarded I was once again instructed to go to the back, and this time the driver added a racially loaded term for emphasis. I responded, “That’s fine. The back of the bus is where the nice people are.” I was promptly thrown off, but could hear the applause of many patrons as the vehicle pulled away.

I share these memories to illustrate the fact that individuals’ concepts of social justice or, in most cases, social injustice are framed by our personal backgrounds and social experiences. What then is social justice to another person—an African American, Hispanic, economically impoverished, or wheelchair-confined individual? It’s clear each may view social justice from a different frame of reference, but there is a central theme to the injustices they face: the denial of opportunities imposed through societal constraints. The end of legal segregation, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the War on Poverty all represent attempts by society, in a broad sense, to redress injustice imposed on the individual by circumstances beyond their control. Although we’ve progressed away from segregated schools and busses, our society must still overcome major hurdles.

How do we help or encourage the transformation of mores that are imbedded in our culture? I say education. Sadly, many children are not exposed to the concept of and need for social justice in their formative years as they pass through elementary and secondary educational systems. So, we can work to expose them to these ideas as teens or young adults when they go off to college, removed from the environment in which they were raised. Even then, many colleges never take the discussion out of the realm of ideas and into real-world practice.

For students fortunate enough to attend Prescott College this will not be a problem. The principles and concepts of social and environmental justice form the bedrock of our hands-on experiential education and aspirations. Students who have a deep interest in the scholarly foundations of social justice can craft majors in the discipline. A Prescott College student is exposed to professors and staff who have participated in activism that has resulted in or is currently producing profound social transformations. I believe our graduates develop the tools and attitudes at Prescott College needed to effect necessary change to make our society a more just place for all. To our students and alumni I have a request: please use what you’ve learned here and in the positions you hold to continue to push our nation and world forward.

Thank you,

John F. Van Domelen, Ph.D. Interim President

College News Lower Butte Creek: The New Centerpiece of Campus

The Butte Creek Restoration Council (BCRC) was originally formed in1996 by three visionary on-campus undergrads and a few dedicated faculty members. The purpose: to address the degraded ecological conditions of Lower Butte Creek, which runs behind the Crossroads Center.

At that time, Garden Street went straight across the streambed. The College persuaded the City of Prescott to close this section of Garden Street, and shortly thereafter we expanded our campus across the stream. Once The Village student housing was completed, Butte Creek had become the centerpiece of our campus, yet it was showing signs of impact from the construction.

In 2012 a small cadre of restoration-minded on-campus undergrads and faculty members revived BCRC around a renewed mission to engage the Prescott College community, our surrounding neighbors, and the larger Prescott community in projects that help restore, enhance, and celebrate Lower Butte Creek as the centerpiece of our expanding campus and a vital part of the Upper Granite Creek Watershed. Current projects include the installation of two creekside interpretive panels, working with the City to add the creek to the Prescott Greenways Trail System, and ongoing revegetation efforts. For more information or to help BCRC efforts, contact Council president Sarai Carter at sarah.carter@prescott.edu, or faculty sponsor Joel Barnes at jbarnes@prescott.edu.

Collegiate Mountain Bike Team

In 2013, a group of students, faculty, and staff formed the Prescott Bike Club and proposed the idea of turning it into an official, competitive team. Grassroots interest and institutional support quickly turned this idea into a reality. Prescott College is now a Division II affiliate of USA Cycling with official status as an emerging varsity team. Membership in the Bike Club is open to staff and faculty members, while membership on the Racing Team in particular is only open to current students. The cycling season runs from August through October with racing opportunities for collegiate riders in track, mountain biking, cyclocross, BMX, and road disciplines in 11 conferences nationwide, with national championships occurring once a year for each discipline.

Accelerated Master of Arts Program in Social Justice and Human Rights

The On-Campus Master of Arts Program in Social Justice and Human Rights (SJHR) has admitted its first cohort of “accelerated students”—undergrads who are first getting a bachelor of arts in Cultural and Regional Studies (CRS) and then a master’s degree in SJHR. Coursework in the senior year of their bachelor’s degree will count as their first year of master’s degree work. With an additional semester of coursework and the completion of a master’s thesis, they will leave Prescott College with both an undergraduate and graduate degree within the span of five years. If you or someone you know is interested in this program, contact the Admissions Office at (877) 350-2100 or admissions@prescott.edu.

Two New Grant Awards Environmental Protection Agency Grant: Prescott College has been awarded a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Environmental Education to provide community funding for Environmental Problem Solving projects related to water conservation. A workshop on Environmental Problem Solving and project proposal development for program applicants took place in September at the Prescott College Crossroads Center, with other support and follow-up activities planned throughout the year.

TechFoundation TechGrant: With the TechFoundation support of $10,000, Prescott College is providing media workshops for nonprofit and charitable organizations in the quad-city area of Northern Arizona as part of the Digital Storytelling in Support of Community Service project. The first of these two workshops took place in January.

Natural History Institute Surpasses $40,000 Goal

In addition to the swirl of activities around the grand opening of the Natural History Institute and the unveiling of the Arader Natural History Print Collection at the Sam Hill Gallery, the Institute received $41,586 between July and December 2013,

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exceeding the $40,000 1:1 matching gift challenge made by an anonymous supporter of the Institute. This matching gift campaign “took a village” – more than 100 individual donors gave. We had gifts from trustees, many faculty, staff, and friends as well as alumni and the parents of alumni. A very important characteristic of these donors is that they are devoted to the study of natural history – and many were first-time donors to the College. Thanks for the support!

Winter Farmers Market on Campus

Prescott College hosted the first season of Winter Farmers Market in the Prescott Tri-City area, November 2013 through April 2014. Prescott’s climate allows for fresh seasonal produce and lots of wonderful locally produced products, foods, gifts, and crafts year round.

Limited-Residency Master of Education

Prescott College is proud to offer a Master of Education degree in Secondary Education and Educational Leadership, Principalship. Secondary teacher certification encompasses social and ecological literacies, sustainability, global learning, and the diversity of human experiences, with a student teaching component.

The graduate degree in Educational Leadership, Principalship focuses on building real-world leadership skills and requires a 300-hour administrative internship in a local school. If you or someone you know is interested in this program, contact the Admissions Office at (877) 350-2100 or admissions@prescott.edu.

President Woolever’s New Appointment

This past fall President Kristin R. Woolever announced her departure from Prescott College to accept the position of Chancellor at Penn State University at Brandywine. She began her new position in early 2014.

The Board of Trustees has selected current Chair John Van Domelen, Ph.D., to serve as Interim President until Kristin’s replacement can be hired. John has 15 years of experience as President of Wentworth Institute of Technology and has been on the Prescott College Board of Trustees for seven years. Former Chair Dan Boyce will take up the reins of interim Board Chair until John can return to this role. The Board hosted a farewell celebration for Kristin in December.

Undergrad Academic Conferences: Experiential Learning in Social Justice Education

Each year, the on-campus undergraduate Cultural and Regional Studies Program coordinates a multi-course academic conference with a theme related to social justice. Themes are chosen to reflect current events and have included: Wealth Inequality, Prison Expansion, Immigration Reform, Education Equality, and Environmental Justice. The conferences offer students the opportunity to engage with social justice issues from multiple viewpoints, to participate in a scholarly practice usually reserved for faculty and advanced graduate students, and to learn from one another.

Two New Endowments The Julie Bondeson Endowed Scholarship was established by the mother of alumnus Adam Bondeson ’95 for any Prescott College student in good academic standing who is pursuing studies in either a sustainable living and/or an environmental program.

The Dr. Bev Santo Endowed Scholarship was established by double alumnus Tony Ebarb ’84, Ph.D. ’09, and Liisa Raikkonen ’84 in honor of the faculty member and Interim Dean for Limited-Residency Programs of the same name. This award is for Prescott College students in good academic standing who are single mothers in the Limited-Residency Undergraduate Program.

Global Plant Database

The Prescott College Library has added access to JSTOR’s electronic Global Plants database.

This database is the largest of its kind; Global Plants is a community-contributed database that features more than two million high resolution plant type specimen images and other foundational materials from the collections of hundreds of herbaria around the world. It is an essential resource for institutions supporting research and teaching in botany, ecology, and conservation studies. Through Global Plants a record of plant life can be preserved for future generations.

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Brothers Forever: A Promise Fulfilled

In 1994 Stephen Smith lost his brother Glenn to AIDS. Glenn was a New York City artist whose mosaics and paintings are exhibited in many galleries. Over the last decade as Steve’s own art has evolved, he began to research and realize the complexity and scope of Glenn’s work. Before Glenn’s death, the brothers promised each other they would one day exhibit their work together. With this exhibition their promise was finally realized. The exhibition ran January 10 through February 8, with a reception January 10 and an Artist’s Talk January 24. A portion of all proceeds from the sale of artwork during this exhibit directly benefitted the fight against AIDS and HIV. Additionally, the Art Gallery at Sam Hill Warehouse co-hosted an HIV/AIDS Round Table Discussion with Northland Cares January 29.

Inaugural Peace and Justice March in Prescott

The inaugural Prescott Martin Luther King Jr. Peace and Justice March began at 9 a.m. Monday, January 20, at the Prescott College Welcome Center parking lot. The march in Prescott and others across the nation were dedicated to King’s memory and his legacy of service. “I was kind of surprised, shocked, and disappointed that there wasn’t an MLK march here in town,” said march organizer and Prescott College Associate Dean for Counselor Education Keith Cross. Keith and Prescott College Associate Director for Civic Development DeeAnn Resk, along with Maggie Garvey M.A. ’11 and Erika Stone of the College-sponsored Arizona Serve project, all collaborated to make the march happen. Participants walked south on Grove Avenue, east on Gurley Street, around the Courthouse Plaza, then west on Gurley, concluding at the Prescott United Methodist Church, where a day of service that addressed a number of community needs began.

Village Student Housing Runs Energy Surplus

The Village produced 2,456 kWh more electricity than the residents consumed in a year. The College now has one full year of energy production and consumption data, and can confirm both that we have exceeded design projections and that the Village is “net zero” for electricity. This includes lighting, plug loads, and heating and cooling but does not include hot water heating (gas powered). Director of Sustainability James Pittman indicates the College will use a typical three-year period for final confirmation, but that these data are quite impressive and next year’s data could be even better. After a full monitoring period, we may be able to confirm sufficient solar energy surplus to offset much of the Village’s natural gas usage for hot water heating, and possibly reach the goal of full net zero performance, something few buildings in the world have achieved.

College Hosts AEE Conference with Social Justice Theme

Prescott College is hosting the Rocky Mountain Regional Conference for the Association of Experiential Education April 25 and 26 this year. The theme for the conference is Experiential Education for a Just World, with the intention to highlight and promote current and successful practices in environmental and social justice as viewed through the lenses of research, education, practice, and advocacy. Students in faculty member Julie Munro’s special topics course will be executing all tasks needed to convene the conference. Additionally, as part of the co-requisite course Adventure Education for a Just World, taught by faculty member Erin Lotz, students will also prepare Student Symposium workshops, with the potential for student presenters from all departments on campus. Keynote speakers Nina Roberts and Sky Gray will bring their decades-long experience in experiential education to the table in talking about inclusive programming, and Prescott College President Emeritus Dan Garvey will discuss future trends in experiential education.

One Man’s Treasure

Prescott College has been partnering with the Prescott Open Space Alliance for several years to co-sponsor Earth Day on the Courthouse Plaza, along with other “Earth Month” activities on campus throughout April, including a keynote speaker. New to the mix this year will be co-sponsorship of One Man’s Treasure, an art auction featuring fine art using upcycled materials and art celebrating Prescott riparian areas, in partnership with Prescott Creeks Preservation Association, on May 3 at the Crossroads Center. As part of One Man’s Treasure, the College participated in a month-long display at the downtown Prescott Public Library during the month of February.

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Master of Science in Counseling Psychology

The College is excited to announce a new professional degree, the Master of Science in Counseling. The Master of Science degree replaces our Master of Arts offering in Counseling Psychology, and indicates a scientist-practitioner model that incorporates evidence-based practices and better reflects our program’s research-based professional coursework and focus on the social sciences. Students can choose from one of the four specializations: Clinical Mental Health, Addiction Counseling, School Counseling, or Couple and Family Therapy. All five of the original concentration areas are still available—Adventure-based Psychotherapy, Ecopsychology, Equine-assisted Mental Health, Expressive Art Therapy, and Somatic Psychology. Of special note, the Counseling degree program continues its exceptional record with a 100 percent pass rate on the National Counselor Examination. If you or someone you know is interested in this program, contact the Admissions Office at (877) 350-2100 or admissions@prescott.edu.

Seeds for a Lasting Legacy

For several years a coordinating committee of faculty members, staff, students, and alumni has worked on the design of a Campus Commons. This vision is nearly complete. The Commons includes native landscaping, fruit trees, and outdoor meeting and learning spaces, all of which can be “adopted” and labeled with a plaque recognizing you or a loved one you wish to honor or memorialize.Your funds offset the purchase price of the plant or installation and will continue to support its care over time. Don’t miss out! Contact the Advancement Office at (928) 350-4505 or development@prescott.edu for more information or to adopt a plant or seating area today.

An Eye Toward Diversity

While the College’s student activism and our geographic location within the state of Arizona have positioned us on the front lines of social justice organizing and activism, ethnically and racially Prescott College has remained largely white among faculty and staff as well as student populations. There are currently three endowments, which have been developed within the past couple of years, that will continue to carry Prescott College into the 21st century: Minority Endowed Scholarship Fund; Ziesenheim Endowed International Scholarship; and Ziesenheim Faculty Endowment for International Studies.

Learn more at www.prescott.edu/give.

Granite Mountain Hotshot Memorial Tree

Prescott College housed and provided food services to members of many of the families who came to participate in the memorial services for 19 local fallen firefighters in July 2013. The Prescott hotshot team saved a nearly 1,000-year old alligator juniper tree during their assignment to the Doce Fire just prior to their work on the Yarnell Hill Fire. After some discussion, the College decided that an appropriate memorial would be to plant an alligator juniper tree in their memory. On the threemonth anniversary of the tragedy that claimed all but one of this brave team, Prescott College dedicated an alligator juniper tree in their memory Monday, September 30, 2013. Special guests included then Prescott Fire Chief Dan Fraijo and Carmen Whitted Alvey, former College staff member and sister to fallen hotshot Clayton Whitted.

Sustainability Education Symposium

This year’s Sustainability Education Symposium, titled Creativity at the Heart of Sustainability, will take place on the Prescott College campus May 16 through 18.

This year will be distinct from other years as the planning committee will weave musicians and creative performers from inside and outside the doctoral program into the symposium, creating an engaging experience for all participants and moving toward a more inclusive, collaborative, creative identity. For details check www.prescottsymposium.org.

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Certified: Veteran Supportive Prescott College recently received certification as an Arizona Veteran Supportive Campus

By Candace B. McNulty

T

wenty-three current Prescott College students, and 12 alumni since 2010 (when informal tracking began), are military veterans. This story is about Prescott College vets, and it’s about Prescott College reaching a milestone—the designation of Arizona Veteran Supportive Campus (AVSC)—and the synergy, timing, and community effort to get there.

Senior Kyle Fouts Jr. ’14, a veteran himself, saw the need for support for student veterans at Prescott College. Patricia Quinn-Kane, Director of Educational Access and sister of a Vietnam veteran, heard Kyle at a Prescott College community meeting describing his concerns. His words touched her, and they began to talk about his vision and how they might make it real.

Around the same time, Director of Financial Aid Mary Frances Causey had learned of the AVSC certification program. Mary Frances says, “We have a long history of enrolling and graduating veterans, but they have mostly gone unrecognized for their service and have persisted here without any type of support network. We are looking forward to having infrastructure in place for veterans and their families.” When Mary Frances became aware of Patricia and Kyle’s ideas, she let them know about the planning underway for Prescott College to apply. And, from Interim President John Van Domelen, a Vietnam veteran retired from the Air Force, to individual undergraduates, the College community was receptive and ready.

The AVSC program grew out of Arizona’s long and deep commitment to veterans, and a strong interest to see a growing tide of student veterans succeed.

The Post-9/11 GI Bill, since taking effect August 1, 2009, has provided more than two million service members who served after September 11, 2001, with incentive and aid to undertake higher education. In its first three years, the number of veterans or their dependents using those benefits nearly doubled.

Fiscal year 2013 saw 1.09 million veteran education beneficiaries, a trend that will continue as hundreds of thousands of people transition from military to civilian life.

This flood revealed new gaps in supportive programming, not least to inform faculty and staff of resources their campuses provided for the unique needs of this booming group and how best to create a supportive environment.

States and their postsecondary education institutions hustled to meet the rising tide, creating new programs or expanding existing ones.

Dave Hampton, Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services (AZDVS) Public Information Officer, says, “Our goal is to certify all institutions of higher learning in the state of Arizona, both public and private, as veteran supportive.”

State universities were required to apply, and by mid-2012, Northern Arizona University, Arizona State University, and University of Arizona all qualified.

For private and community colleges, application is voluntary; Prescott College was the first to apply, and the first to receive certification.

Getting acquainted with three Prescott College vets—two current students and an alumnus—can illuminate the needs of military veterans on campus.

Kyle Fouts Jr., from Tucson, describes his younger self as a poor student with little patience for homework and no clear direction. Kyle reached for the military; he was active in the Navy from 2005 to 2009, including a tour in the Persian Gulf in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus a lot of shipyard work. Back home he took work in private security: “Boring.” A fan of

Current student Kyle Fouts Jr. ’14 (above), in Rock Canyon Conservation area, 2014; (below) in dress uniform at family wedding, Phoenix, 2007

Current student Dean Goehring ’15 (above), and his dog Kya, 2012; (below) with PFC Tennessen, Operation Enduring Freedom, Bahrain, 2009

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Christopher Glade ’99 (above), with family in South Africa, 2013; (below) Operation Team Spirit, DMZ, South Korea, 1988

“I encourage all of our private institutions of higher education to follow Prescott College’s lead so that we may better meet the needs of our brave men and women that have fought to secure our freedoms.”

—Arizona Governor Jan Brewer

Walt Anderson (above), present day; (below) colonel pinning staff sergent rank on Walt Anderson, Vietnam, 1969

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the Discovery Channel show Man v.Wild, he searched online for outdoors programs. He found NOLS, Outward Bound—and Prescott College. With four years of education benefits at his disposal, he chose Prescott College.

Current student Dean Goehring ’15 enlisted to “fully leave home and be independent.” Travel and challenge also appealed. He served in the U.S. Army from 2006 to 2011, with deployments in South Korea and Bahrain.

After service, he says, “I wanted a career in the outdoors; I wanted to travel and live on my own terms.” While in an associate’s program in Minnesota, Dean received an unsolicited brochure from NOLS, something he’d never heard of but which sounded like “an awesome way to spend a semester.”

The GI Bill would cover that semester, but a four-year program seemed a better fit for his goals.

Local alumnus and veteran Chris Glade ’99 is a clinical therapist and a social worker in the Housing and Urban Development/Veterans Affairs program at the Prescott VA facility, helping put homeless veterans into independent housing. Enlisting right after high school, with “no desire or wherewithal for college,” Chris served five years in the Marines, five in the Army, in several countries and U.S. states, as an infantryman and in a long-range surveillance platoon. After discharge, on a break from working construction, he was backpacking at the bottom of Grand Canyon when passing hikers caught his attention: they were a Prescott College class, led by the legendary gruff Englishman Mike Goff. Delighted to learn of a college offering degrees in wilderness leadership, Chris soon enrolled. After graduating in 1999, he worked for Outward Bound and wilderness youth groups; realizing he wanted to do counseling, he earned a master’s degree in social work at Arizona State.

Though not the only draw, it’s understandable that Prescott College’s strong Adventure Education and Wilderness Leadership programming attracts veteran applicants. Dr. Ronald Nairn, first College president and founder of the program’s first incarnation, Outdoor Action, had a military background himself. Roy H. Smith, who piloted the College’s first wilderness orientation in 1969, is credited with bringing Outward Bound (rooted in teaching WW II sailors survival skills) into higher education. He led mountaineering expeditions in the British army and now runs four-day wilderness programs with veterans in Colorado. The teamwork, leadership, and challenge elements of College outings can feel familiar to vets.

Still, veterans may face difficulties transitioning from military to campus life. Students arriving from the military are by definition nontraditional. Frequently older than the typical undergraduate, many have logged several years in some unusual employment. This in itself is not problematic at Prescott College. Dean of Enrollment Management Brian Sajko explains that since the College “was founded on the principle of education of all students from all age groups,” serving nontraditional students is “part of our DNA”; the Limited-Residency programs, along with Prior Learning Assessment and a one-on-one educational approach, allow flexibility. But with flexibility comes some ambiguity. In the military, identity is not something you have to discover and work out for yourself; your uniform declares it to your social world. Chris Glade observes, “In the military you might get to feeling somewhat dumbed down,” if your value was “can you shoot your rifle, can you crawl on your belly.” Finding “who you are” in the educational world can be intimidating.

Another challenge for veterans can be academia’s special approach.

Professor of Environmental Studies Walt Anderson, himself a Vietnam vet, observes: “A liberal arts institution calls on you to expand the rules, discover the rules, instead of just accepting … This can create anxiety.” The military is a task-oriented, directive world. “I didn’t need to wake up and plan my day,” says Kyle. “It was just: follow your orders, don’t question them.” Chris adds that you’ve been trained, so you’re expected to know how to get things done without asking. So vets may be “reluctant to ask questions,” to expose their ignorance, and thus “may let something escape that they could have had answered quickly.” He says, “I needed a little extra guidance at the beginning, and I wasn’t going to seek it on my own.”

breakout session. Kyle manages, and he and Dean staff, PC’s Veterans Certain deeper cultural concerns apply to the Prescott Service Center, providing “resources, support services, mentorship College community in particular. Kyle tells a story of his first opportunities, community outreach, and a general safe space for vetcampus tour, which began in a classroom where Marxism was erans to go.” Talking with someone who understands is vital; Dean under discussion. His conservative background gave him qualms is working on vet-to-vet mentoring. And Patrick Ziegert, Training about meshing with the people he observed. But when the tour & Outreach Coordinator for the Arizona Coalition for Military ended at the gear warehouse, where masses of equipment were laid Families (ACMF), conducted sensitivity and awareness training for out for upcoming trips, he knew he’d find ways to fit in. Kyle has 40 faculty and staff covering challenges student veterans may face. observed conflict within the College community related to ACMF partners with AZDVS on the students’ military backgrounds—not surprisASVC program—and does much more. ing in a culture so oriented toward peace.

“We have a long history of Mary Frances Causey describes the value But he believes another Prescott College enrolling and graduating veter- of ACMF’s involvement: “The entire value trumps all else: “We’re this social is available to us as a resource. justice college and we’re all about including, ans, but they have mostly gone [Coalition] Prescott College had to accomplish this so nobody should have to come here and unrecognized for their service without funding or additional personnot be able to say ‘This is who I am.’” He is proud to help his college “walk its talk” in and have persisted here without nel. It couldn’t have happened without the Guidelines for CARE (Connect, Ask, this way, through understanding and any type of support network.

Respond, Engage) and the support from inclusiveness. His goal? Bring people Steve Weintrub at AZDVS.” Networking is together; create a supportive community at We are looking forward to fundamental; likewise a holistic integration Prescott College for students who served or having infrastructure in place with other community services available, are currently serving in our country’s armed for veterans and their families.” from financial support and the transition forces, and their families and friends. into higher education to help with A supportive learning community for —Mary Frances Causey accessing employment, housing, family, veterans is exactly the goal of legislators in legal, and medical services. Building an crafting the AVSC program. It begins with infrastructure of support to help veterans succeed as students is the a survey of veterans, to understand their needs; Kyle had already aim of Prescott College’s veterans program. created one as part of his Senior Project, and Dean designed one for The College’s preparations toward this aim met with success: the whole student body. Then, facilitated by Patricia Quinn-Kane, a March 6, 2014, email brought the happy news of certification. A a steering committee formed, including student vets; most faculty letter from Arizona Governor Jan Brewer declared, “I encourage all involved are veterans, and several staff come from military families. of our private institutions of higher education to follow Prescott This group, which Patricia calls College’s lead so that we may better meet the needs of our brave “highly supportive, involved, men and women that have fought to secure our freedoms.” passionate,” tackles hard ques tions. Certification requires orientation programs designed Chirstopher Glade, Desert Warfare Acronyms and Websites for veterans; but should vets have School, 29 Palms, California, 1989 AVSC Arizona Veteran Supportive Campus a separate orientation? There’s https://dvs.az.gov/veterans-supportive-campus a strong desire not to isolate veterans from the broader life of ACMF Arizona Coalition for Military Families the College. Similarly, some 15 http://arizonacoalition.org percent of veterans may experience issues like PTSD. How do AZDVS Arizona Dept. of Veterans’ Services we address such needs without https://dvs.az.gov stigmatizing?

Prescott College has made

a start. Dean created a slideshow Walt Anderson, Total veterans enrolled in Prescott College: 21 for a veteran-specific orientation Vietnam, 1969 On-Campus Undergraduate Program: 13 Limited-Residency Undergraduate Program: 3 Limited-Residency Master’s Program: 5 Graduates since 2010: 12 known

Dean Goehring, table XII training, Suwon, South Korea, 2007

Pictured: Compliance Team (back) Brian Sajko, Mary Frances Causey, Sophia Andali, and Chris Hout ’92; (front) Caitlyn Wright and Patricia Quinn-Kane.

Not pictured: Steering Committee (student veterans) Kyle Fouts, Dean Goehring, and Jens Deichmann Ph.D. ’13; (faculty) Wendy Watson, Vicky Young ’95, Bev Santo ’84, Walt Anderson, and David Lovejoy ’73; (staff) Christyn Smith, Angie Ridlen,Vita Marie Phares, Chris Schreiner, Patricia Quinn-Kane; (alumni and former instructors) Tom Whittaker, Roy Smith ’75, Tom Barry ’92.

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Forward Together in North Carolina One alumna’s story from the front lines of social justice

By Jenn Weaver ’97

O

n Monday, June 3, 2013, I was arrested in the North Carolina General Assembly Senate rotunda and charged with disobeying the building rules, carrying a sign or placard, and second-degree trespassing. My official arrest report read that I was “Engaged in loud singing and praying.” There were 151 of us arrested on that particular day, but by the end of the summer 941 people total had been arrested for this same act of civil disobedience as part of the Moral Monday protests. What are Moral Monday protests, you ask? Well … let’s start at the beginning.

A handful of extreme right-wing leaders and a like-minded governor were in the midst of passing a series of bills that set our state back in its progress down the road toward the 21st century.

Those who are not from North Carolina may think this sort of thing is just par for the course in Southern states. On the contrary, North Carolina has long been a beacon of progressivism in the region, particularly in the areas of public K-12 and higher education.

Prior to my arrest at the rotunda, the North Carolina General Assembly had reduced unemployment benefits in the face of massive job shortages; refused to expand Medicaid even though it would have been paid for by already-spent citizen tax dollars; cut public education spending to the point where our state now ranks third from the bottom among the fifty states; cut pre-K assistance to disadvantaged children despite decades of research documenting how important this aid is for future success; rolled back environmental standards that have resulted in dirtier air and water; greatly restricted women’s access to abortion services; and passed a voter ID law to prevent nonexistent voter fraud and restrict early voting.

And all of this happened on the heels of an election that passed a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage.

Despite these major setbacks, much progress is being made on the ground. North Carolina is currently experiencing a social justice movement that is unmatched anywhere else in the country.

A diverse coalition of progressive organizations, spearheaded by the North Carolina NAACP, have put aside factionalism under the realization that a socially just North Carolina is one where groups recognize shared, not separate, interests.

Under the leadership of the brilliant and inspired Reverend Dr. William Barber II, President of the North Carolina NAACP, advocates for civil rights, women’s health, voting rights, immigrants’ rights, clean air, clean water, environmental justice, workers’ rights, affordable health care, and many, many more have realized we have more in common than not. It’s clear that the primary guiding force for each interest group is ultimately justice. Together we have formed the Forward Together Moral Monday movement. July 3 of last year is when I knew that this movement had achieved what so many before had strived for, but failed to attain—a true fusion of efforts and vision.

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On Tuesday, July 2, around 6:30 p.m. word flew out across social media that extreme rightwing politicians were about introduce an amendment to an unrelated bill that would have the effect of closing health clinics in North Carolina that offer abortions. It was to be debated the next morning. Supporters of women’s rights were asked to show up in Raleigh the next morning to fill the hearing room. When I arrived, the hearing room and the Senate rotunda outside the room were already filled to the brim, and a couple hundred protesters were gathered outside. I was prohibited from going inside under the terms of my arrest, so my kids and I grabbed some signs and joined our friends outside, almost all of us dressed in pink and purple as requested by Planned Parenthood organizers.

This is when Reverend Curtis Gatewood arrived. Reverend Gatewood was arrested with the first wave of 17 Moral Monday protestors in late April 2013. He went on to lead the crowd of supporters in chants outside the General Assembly every week as prison busses drove away with subsequent waves of protestors, and he personally greeted every person released from jail each week with a hug; a process which sometimes didn’t end until four o’clock in the morning. Reverend Gatewood would later coordinate the Historic Thousands on Jones Street demonstration, which on February 8, 2014, drew a reported 80,000 people to march in the name of justice, and the Forward Together movement. On the third of July the Reverend was dressed in his Sunday best, holding a megaphone, and promptly began a rousing round of “What do you want?”—“Women’s rights!” — “When do you want ’em?” — “NOW!” If you know much about the history of abortion rights and particularly the historic opinion of abortion among religious African Americans, you may have some idea of how powerful this moment was. To see one of the primary faces of the NAACP standing arm in arm with a sea of men and women in pink, protesting draconian abortion restrictions, was a sight to behold—a momentous setting aside of issue-specific differences for a broader goal. I knew then that our movement was real, that the Forward Together Moral Monday movement was a true fusion of heretofore-disparate groups who have joined together in a shared vision of justice.

Why then, my far-flung fellow alumni, should you care about what is happening in North Carolina? As my friend Jedediah Purdy wrote in a piece for Huffington Post, “If you share the values of civic equality and common care, they tie you to people working for them everywhere.”

Other Prescott College graduates are participating in the Forward Together Moral Monday movement as well: Amy Berent ’95, Angela Stott ’95, John Piper Waters ’01, and Holly Roach’98 are all living here in North Carolina and have been on the scene.

Prescott College staff member Rachel Peters M.A. ’04 and her husband Dan Janonne M.A. ’06 even made an appearance during a visit in June (they got to witness my mom being arrested at the protest).

A belief in social justice is a driving reason many of us chose or choose Prescott College and is what inspires our work, our relationships, and our life choices. As we say in North Carolina, “Forward together, not one step back!”

Jenn Weaver is married with two children and lives in Hillsborough, N.C. She teaches yoga, is a freelance copy editor, and was recently elected to her first term on the Hillsborough Town Board.

(Back) Jenn Weaver ’97, Amy Berent ’95, and John Piper Waters ’01, (front) Jenn’s children Rosa and burn, Cyrus;2013 Amy’s son Charlie Rainbow, Dosie PitLuarea

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Information and Power in Maasailand

President Mwai Kibaki holding Kenya’s new constitution, August 2010

By Mary Poole, Ph.D.

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Kenyan Maasailand

T

he man said, “Atta empala,” in the language of the Maasai people. “I have the document.” I looked at the smudged photocopy wrapped in plastic, the ancient typewriter script that likely made holes in the delicate paper of the original. The man before me was Moses Mpoe, a member of the Maasai community who had been waging a lonely fight for the return of his family’s homeland at a place called Mau Narok. Mau Narok is 30,000 acres of wet, lush ancestral Maasai land taken under British colonization a century ago and never returned.

It was the summer of 2008, and I was in Kenya teaching a field studies program of 12 Prescott College undergraduate students with Meitamei Olol Dapash, a Maasai community leader and head of the College’s partner organization, the Institute for Maasai Education, Research, and Conservation (MERC). Our class was in Kenya to share our educations with Maasai activists, many of whom, like Mpoe, could not read and write themselves, but understood better than I the power of information and access to it.

The field studies program that Meitamei and I have taught since 2005 is Maasailand: A Study in Community Activism. Every summer, the course is built around a different piece of work undertaken on behalf of the Maasai community, and that typically involves research.

Throughout the year between summer programs, Meitamei gathers information through conversations with hundreds of President Jomo Maasai community leaders and Kenyatta, 1963 activists to determine the research project that would most meet their community’s priorities.

Mpoe was in our camp because the answer to Meitamei’s inquiry in 2008 was land rights at Mau Narok. Mau Narok is sacred ground. That means that it has played an essential economic, Prescott College students research Mau spiritual, political, cultural, and Natok land case at social role in the life of the Kenya National Archive, Nairobi, 2008 Maasai people. The Maasai are pastoralists whose lands, before colonization, covered much of present-day Kenya and Tanzania. Mau Narok is the headwaters of a region of hundreds of thousands of acres of dry land, an area that enabled the community’s survival during deep droughts, and was an essential aspect of their land management strategies.

Instead of being returned to the Maasai community at Independence in 1963, Mau Narok was reoccupied by absentee landlords—family and associates of Kenya’s first president. Mau Narok has been deforested in all of the flat places. It’s devoid of the nutrition that was for centuries provided by cow dung. Rivers have been dammed and are polluted by modern pesticides and fertilizers. The community’s desire for the return of Mau Narok is for homeland, culture, sacredness, economic security, justice, survival, past, and future.

Meitamei had invited Mpoe to spend the summer educating our students about his fight, and the document he gave us was evidence that the occupation of Mau Narok was illegal under

current Kenyan law. It’s important to note that in the context of Kenya, even freshman from Prescott College are considered highly educated people and possess the skills to access information that can make the difference in the fight for equality of an Indigenous community. The summer of 2008, Prescott College joined Mpoe’s struggle: our job was to find more documents, dig into archives, books, letters, and maps, reconstruct the paper trail of how Mau Narok had been taken. We would then report back to the community.

We found ample evidence that the occupation of this Maasai homeland was illegal under both British and Kenyan law. In August we gave our report to several hundred Maasai community members. The following day, 700 Maasai people moved back onto the land with cattle, and began to build homes; they have not left since.

What followed the summer of 2008 was a protracted fight with the Kenyan government that involved state violence and arrests. Efforts were made to settle other Kenyan people on the land in order to prevent the Maasai claim. Intimidation was used. Cattle were seized. In the spring of 2010 the Maasai filed suit in Kenyan court. This was an unprecedented move.

Meitamei Olol Dapash organizing in Mau Naruk, 2010

Defendants arrested for peaceful protest in Mau Narok, 2011

Kenyan media grabbed hold of the story and reported on it extensively, generating support from other marginalized Kenyan communities. A movement was born of this struggle that has seen leadership emerge from Maasai youth, pastors, elders, women, and men. The ruling in the case this spring is expected to be in the community’s favor; 600 acres have already been returned to the Maasai through a lower court ruling.

The Maasai struggle for land rights exemplifies something that is well known in much of the Global South: the importance of information to the struggles waged by marginalized communities— especially as the power to create information is shared (a process that is known as “decolonizing knowledge”). In our world here in

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Crowd gathered at Mau Narok for peaceful protest, 2011

the U.S., we are saturated with information—information at our fingertips. It can be hard to appreciate the transformative, liberatory power that information can have in places with little access.

Information is the drop of water that can bring dormant seeds of vision to life. That is a power already in the hands of our students.

Today Prescott College embarks on a new venture with the Maasai community. In 2010, Kenya adopted its first postcolonial constitution, which leapfrogs ahead of those of Western countries in women’s rights and Indigenous people’s rights. It devolves power from what was virtually the sole rule of the country’s president to a newly created county government structure. A governor, an assembly, and various ministries now represent Maasai people in Narok. This leadership is bringing the talents, education, and vision of the community to an agenda of transformation: to create equity in tourism, design structures for sustainable conservation of wildlife, undertake land policies that protect Maasai culture and economy, and embed the value of cultural survival in the education of children in Maasailand.

Through Prescott College’s longstanding partnership with MERC, we will contribute to this moment of opportunity. This coming summer of 2014, for the first time, Prescott College Ph.D. and Master of Arts students will come to Kenya. They will help build a model of research that incorporates the need for information of the Maasai community leadership, and the ability to share the power of education with the people they represent. Additionally, members of the Prescott College Board of Trustees will take a third official trip to Kenya in July 2014 to see firsthand what’s being done and to continue strengthening our partnerships there.

If you are interested in becoming involved in MERC and Prescott College’s work in Kenya, please contact Mary Poole at mpoole@prescott.edu.

Crowd gathered at Mau Narok for peaceful protest, 2011

Three-day prayer meeting of Maasai leaders, 2011

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Dedicated Faculty for Social Justice and Human Rights Ernesto Todd Mireles strikes a balance as scholar, practitioner, and activist

By Joan Clingan ’11, Ph.D.

E

rnesto Todd Mireles is of a new generation, a generation that Through his work with MEXA he organized a four-year United brings the word “fluid” into conversation about identity. He Farm Workers grape boycott campaign and coordinated a six-day personally doesn’t identify with the term multiracial. He water-only hunger strike. He negotiated a quarter-million-dollar is very clear that he’s Chicano. He grew up with Mexican siblings scholarship fund and the initial gift for the Cesar Chavez library and two younger siblings who were black in the household of his collection. He was also one of the coordinators for the 1997 mother’s family, who were white. The family adored Todd and his national MEXA conference at Michigan State—the only time siblings, but made it clear that they didn’t consider the children MEXA has held its conference east of the Mississippi. The white. Looking back, he realizes this was their way of protecting high-profile work and focus of MEXA at Michigan State compelled him from unrealistic expectations about how he would be categothe university to develop a Chicano studies undergraduate specialrized and treated in the outside world. ization, which eventually produced one of the first Chicano studies Todd’s scholarly background includes degrees earned at Ph.D. programs in the nation.

Michigan State University, starting with a bachelor of arts in During a break from his undergraduate work, Todd spent a journalism, a master’s in social work focused on organizational and few years in Detroit, where he worked for the United Farm community practice, and he is in the final stages of earning his Workers of America (UFW). He coordinated community activiPh.D. in American studies. ties as well as participating in national and regional In May, Todd will defend his strategy meetings for the dissertation, titled “Insurgent Aztlan: Xicano Resistance UFW’s strawberry campaign.

Writing in the United He also started the Xicano States.”

Development Center and At Michigan State several Brown Beret chapters Todd taught courses on race as the Mexican population in and ethnicity in the United Detroit flourished. After the States, public life, evolution UFW, he went to work for of American thought, and the United Steel Workers of radical thought, as well as America, developing a composition and writing. program to create worker He believes that experiential centers for underrepresented organizing skills are populations in an empowerIron Springs Road, postfire, 2013 essential; so he led his ment zone located in the first-year writing students Mexican barrio of Southwest in Michigan to develop Detroit. a one-day ethnic studies After leaving the symposium centering on Steelworkers, Todd worked at Todd speaking to TUSD School Board, Tucson Freedom Summer, 2012 the struggle for Mexican the Michigan Citizen, a weekly American Studies in Tucson, Ariz. As they developed the sympoblack newspaper run by Charles and Theresa Kelly, whom he refers sium, he taught the basics of professional writing, grant requests, to as “put your money where your mouth is revolutionaries.” public presentations, conference research, as well as all of the Michigan Citizen was economically viable and supported the black logistical work involved in presentation and event planning. community through bare-knuckle journalism about police Students raised the money and brought in speakers from the brutality, land takeovers, and real reporting on the public school Tucson struggle. takeover. Todd was responsible for line editing and layout, further developing his journalism skills and supporting the publication with “I’m working on a manuscript that …” is a frequent his formal undergraduate training. statement in Todd’s conversation. In addition to his teaching, he has Eventually Todd moved back to Lansing, where he operated more than 20 years of media and journalism experience with small the Xicano Development Center (XDC) and served as its executive radical newspapers and journals. He has also published two poetry collections and is currently working on a manuscript of essays and director. He was responsible for lectures, fundraising, networking, educational curriculum, and developing community campaigns poetry called Suicide Notes of an Aztlan Insurgent.

It is clear from conversation and his vitae that organizing around immigration, gentrification, and school district issues. He did electoral organizing for numerous positions, including district activism rounds out who Todd is as an educator and permeates his life’s journey. As a student at Michigan State Todd was a campus congress, state representatives, school board, and mayor. He is most organizer for Movimiento Estudiantil Xicano de Aztlan (MEXA). proud of his work in support of the election of Tony Benavides for

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Mayor of Lansing. Todd describes the effort: “It’s a good example of what long-term, low-intensity organizing can do in a community.

As a group we had to pull Tony out of a hole and ended up winning by 284 votes.”

Mayor Benavides was the first Latino councilman and the first Latino mayor in Lansing. With his election XDC established a reputation as being effective organizers because they were not afraid to confront the power system and have “a good old-fashioned slugfest.” Todd says, “Looking at all the ways [the Xicano community in Lansing] had been defeated, we pulled this election out of a hat. That one puts a smile on my face. We had been humiliated so deeply and so many times that we needed our best effort to win, and we did it.”

At one point Todd worked for the American Federation of Teachers as staff organizer for the Graduate Employees Union.

During contract negotiations, the group was on a one-day strike.

Michigan State had hired union plasterers to work on the dorms, so Todd called a longtime friend with the plasterers union. He let them know they were working in a struck building. “They shut the whole thing down. The University settled the next day,” he says.

When Todd was ready to go back to finish his undergraduate work, he wrote a letter to Michigan State’s provost making a case for readmission based on his accomplishments and service. “That was one of the easiest won arguments,” he says. Todd finished his bachelor’s degree and went on to complete a master’s degree and doctoral work there as well. It was his doctoral work that lead him to Prescott.

Two summers ago, after completing his doctoral coursework and exams, Todd was organizer and architect of the Tucson Freedom Summer, a national call for organizers, activists, and artists that converged on Tucson, Ariz., in support of the banned Mexican American Studies Program. There he met Anita Fernández, who

told him about a new program at Prescott College in social justice and human rights that might be hiring. Although he had been applying for teaching positions elsewhere already, he still hadn’t found one that would allow him the freedom to carry out engaged, experiential education.

“Doing that ethnic studies symposium with my undergrad students was really far out at MSU. I still can’t believe I did it and got away with it,” Todd says. “Prescott College has a commitment to social justice and to experiential learning on a level I’ve never experienced before.” He describes his excitement, at the job interview last year, about the latitude that our faculty has to bring all five senses into the classroom. “During the interview I don’t think I fully understood what this pedagogy entails and demands,” he says.

“Now I’m immersed in it and I’m learning to strike a balance in the classroom between theory and practice.”

Barrio Viejo, Social Justice Education Semester, Tucson, 2013

The Balance of SJHR Faculty When Prescott College has a faculty opening, we attract top scholars and practitioners who are excited by our mission and ready to bring forward their own work and commitment. The search for a faculty member dedicated to the social justice and human rights curriculum was no exception. Ernesto Todd Mireles joins the following faculty members, who co-designed, launched, and currently teach in the Social Justice and Human Rights Master of Arts Program: Zoe Hammer’s teaching and research centers on the political economy of globalization and the cultures of neoliberalism, contemporary theories of social inequality and social change, and critical cultural studies, which emphasizes the role of culture in both challenging and reproducing social systems.

Anita Fernández’s areas of teaching and research include social justice education, critical multicultural education, and teacher education.

She currently serves as Director of Prescott College, Tucson, and the Xican@ Institute for Teaching and Organizing.

Mary Poole’s teaching and research areas include public policy, U.S. history, and international development and indigenous rights.

As Co-Director of the Maasai Community Partnership Project, Mary leads PC students to Kenya every summer to undertake historical and other research on behalf of the Maasai community of Kenya.

Joan Clingan’s teaching and research interests include research design and critical research methods; social, ecological, and environmental justice; and identity and power explored through U.S. literature.

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ity. Meanwhile, the passage of SB1070, the “show me your papers” law mandating racial profiling in state law enforcement, along with a wide variety of legislation targeting the rights and dignity of the Latin@ community in Arizona, offer opportunities for our students to learn about political battles and connections among social movements, educational models that are particularly successful in urban settings, border militarization, and social justice activism aimed at raising awareness and countering attacks on human rights.

Faculty member Ernesto Todd Mireles spent his first semester with the College teaching in Tucson. “Given the national attention —From Proclamation by Ofelia Zepeda that has been focused on Tucson over the past several years and the role eslie Marmon Silko told us, that Prescott College has “Time is not linear, it’s a new played in keeping colonialist European concept Mexican American created to put linear time between Studies alive—the you and your colonized crimes,” as current developments we held class on the front porch of in our coursework and her desert home overlooking the programs are much Tucson Mountains. “Time is an needed. Tucson has been ocean we’re all swimming in.” and continues to be a Silko’s words not only set a focal point of struggle for theme for our courses in the human rights and social Tucson Social Justice Education justice. What better way semester for on-campus underto serve the mission of graduate students, but also capture the College than helping the essence of why Prescott College SJHR students perform guerilla theatre, Tucson, 2013 to lead the charge for is positioning much of its social justice human rights in Tucson?” teaching in a place that is the epicenter of both trauma and healing; As Mireles points out, Prescott College has been at the foredehumanization and empowerment; militarization and freedom—a front of continuing the legacy of the now banned MAS program, space of contradictions. With careful intentionality on the part of and the Tucson Social Justice Education Semester centers around the faculty and students lucky enough to be working within the the pedagogy and philosophy of that program.

Tucson community, the political, social, and environmental landscapes of Tucson, and the Arizona-Sonora borderlands as a whole, Tucson Social Justice Education Semester remain central to the work being produced out of Prescott College.

The Tucson Social Justice Education Semester is an opportunity After the passage of HB2281 (now ARS 15-112), a highly for on-campus undergraduate students to immerse themselves in renowned Mexican American Studies (MAS) program was elimian urban setting while learning with and from experts in the fields nated from the Tucson Unified School District. This controversial, of critical pedagogy, Chican@ studies, culturally responsive curcontested, and divisive law put our state in the national media spotriculum, and community organizing. The semester consists of three light where Arizona was labeled the “State of Hate.” Where racial courses that are co-taught by Prescott College Tucson Director profiling, book banning, and the deliberate erasing of Chicano/a Anita Fernández and Sean Arce, co-founder and former Director of (or Chican@) history was, and still is, a daily occurrence. The loss of the Mexican American Studies Program in Tucson. This intensive the MAS program is especially significant because of the dramatic field-based experience melds the Xican@ indigenous epistemology academic success of MAS graduates, who finished high school and used in the MAS program, together with critical, liberatory educaentered college at rates far above state and national averages. tion and student engagement in local community activism.

Ironically, the authors and boosters of HB2281 promoted the The first cohort took place in the spring of 2013 and resulted law on the grounds that teaching about the history of racial justice in all 13 of the students being accepted to and presenting at the struggles is itself racist. This puts Prescott College on the front lines National Association of Multicultural Education conference in of social evolution. Many scholars have argued that Arizona has Oakland this past November. Students shared their work from the become a social laboratory for what Henry Giroux labels Tucson semester and represented Prescott College as some of the “neoliberal racism,” a strategy that rejects (and claims to be offended only undergraduate students presenting at this national conference. by) older forms of racism grounded in claims of white superior-

“Cuk Son is a story.

Tucson is a linguistic alternative.

The story is in many languages Still heard in this place of Black Mountains.

They are in the echo of lost, forgotten languages Heard here even before the people arrived.”

L

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CSU Northridge/L.A., Social Justice Education Semester Spring 2013

Social Justice Education at Prescott College

The pace of the first Tucson semester was intense, to say the least. From reading, discussing, self-reflecting, and analyzing, to engaging with stakeholders along the U.S./Mexico border, to meeting and learning directly from several of the authors we studied, the students and the instructors were “on” all the time.

Because of the nature of scholar activism and community organizing, plans often changed midway through the day to attend a protest or, in one case, to be interviewed by the Los Angeles Times about our work, and in another, to attend a vigil along the border after a young boy was shot and killed by a border patrol agent.

During a visit to Los Angeles, students had the opportunity to learn directly from Chican@ studies scholar Rudy Acuña one day, hip-hop artist and activist Olmeca the next, and then the brilliant organizers from the Pico Youth and Family Center. Back in Tucson, a highlight was being invited to Leslie Silko’s home after we had read one of her books. We also met with Luis Alberto Urrea after reading his book Devil’s Highway.

The opportunities to participate directly in social justice work in Tucson are plentiful and are also part of the curriculum of the On-Campus Master of Arts Program in Social Justice and Human Rights (SJHR), which is based at Prescott College, Tucson, for the first semester of study.

that link food justice and environmental policy advocacy with grassroots struggles for housing and transportation justice. L.A. offers incredible opportunities to teach about the ways global and local forces intersect, and empower students to learn how to participate in making real social change.”

With Prescott College graduate students studying in Tucson during fall semester and undergraduate students there in the spring, the Tucson community has become aware of the important work we are engaged in. With the addition of the Xican@ Institute for Teaching and Organizing, educators and activists from around the country have also traveled to Prescott College in Tucson for professional development.

Xican@ Institute for Teaching and Organizing (XITO)

XITO was founded by Prescott College faculty members Anita Fernández and Ernesto Todd Mireles along with several of the former MAS teachers interested in training educators and organizers nationally in the pedagogy and philosophy of the outlawed program. Through educational institutes, XITO has attracted individuals from several SJHR student Renee Daniel ’14 states to attend three days of trainat Operation ing from our expert team. In Streamline protest, addition to professional developTucson, 2013 ment, XITO sponsors high school classes in Chican@ Literature and Social Justice Social Studies for college credit. and Human CLASS students at Free Minds, Free When Arizona outlawed his People Conference, Summer 2013 Rights high school Chican@ literature class, former MAS teacher Curtis Master’s Degree Program Acosta decided he was not going to Director of the SJHR Program Zoe Hammer stop offering his course to Tucson describes the value of situating graduate students youth. He began to hold classes on in Tucson for a portion of their coursework: Sundays and, in collaboration with “The Tucson semester of the Master’s Degree Anita Fernández, created a Program in Social Justice and Human Rights offers structure for Prescott College to students the opportunity to both study and apply award college credit for the theories of social change in an experiential setting, Sunday classes. Several of the with faculty who are long-time participants in local students from Mr. Acosta’s class social justice activism. attended the Free Minds, Free “Tucson is a remarkably rich community for People conference in Chicago last learning about the ways neoliberal policies and trade relations are shaping daily life in the bi-national XITO Institute participants, Fall 2013 summer and presented the research they had completed in their course. region of Sonora, both because of its unique history With the attention being and landscape, as well as the ways it is representative of global generated by Prescott College, Tucson, the hope is that pathways dynamics in border regions around the world. Prescott College are being created for recruitment of students from southern Aristudents work hand-in-hand with and learn from local social justice zona. As faculty members continue to build on their longstanding activists who are at the cutting edge of building movements to relationships with schools, organizations, and individuals in Tucson, democratize policy and build sustainable ways of living.” the College is becoming a vital component of the social justice Along with their time in Tucson, SJHR students orient work happening in the Arizona-Sonora border region. With all its themselves to graduate work and community organizing during the contradictions, Tucson remains a location of possibility, as bell hooks Urban Field Orientation in Los Angeles. While in L.A., master’s would say ... this is education as the practice of freedom. degree students study how the dynamics of globalization shape urban landscapes and are creating new opportunities and practices This article was contributed by Anita Fernández, Ph.D., Director of of social justice movement building. Hammer notes, “The organiPrescott College,Tucson, and the Xican@ Institute for Teaching and zations we work with in Los Angeles are innovating new kinds of Organizing. coalitions and working across movement issues that once were understood to be at odds; students engage directly with projects linking environmental, labor, and immigration justice movements,

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A Parent Perspective

Alumni parents Dan and Sue Boyce share their personal perspective on Prescott College Interview by Ashley Mains M.A. ’11

What in your son Geoff ’s life journey drew him to Prescott College?

DB: When he was in high school there was a program at his school called the Experiential Learning Center. The teacher who led the program got to know Geoff very well and told him during their Grand Canyon trip, “If you are ever thinking of going to college, you might consider Prescott College.” So he just tucked it away in his mind, and he really didn’t tell us anything about it then.

When he graduated from high school he didn’t want to go right into college, which was fine with us. He spent the fall semester working and by the middle of that semester he felt as though he was falling behind his peer group. He remembered what his high school teacher said, he looked into it, applied to Prescott College, and the first we heard about it was …

SB: “By the way, Mom and Dad, I’m going to college in January.”

DB: [Laughter] Yeah. He was always very bright, but he didn’t connect with the traditional academic setting. Of course we didn’t know it at the time, but experiential learning is his learning style, clearly.

SB: Well, and the social justice piece. We are Unitarian Universalists. That’s how he was raised. Our faith has a very strong social justice focus. So, that part of Prescott College really resonated with him also.

What were your first impressions of the College?

DB: What sticks with me was when we visited over Thanksgiving break. They had a potluck community Thanksgiving. Anybody who was around could come and we had a fantastic time. The students were unlike any undergrads I had ever met. I was very impressed.

SB: It was like the first Thanksgiving, because everybody came bringing Tofurkies and turkeys and pies and spread them out on a long table. At some colleges the fact that we were parents and were there would have been weird, but there was just no hierarchy, and it was such a wonderful experience.Very welcoming.

Is there a specific time when you thought, “Okay, this is a great place for my son”?

SB: Geoff wasn’t sure he had landed in the right place at first.

Growing up in metropolitan Detroit he was used to having the arts at his disposal—going to the theater and having really wonderful music. In Prescott, one has to dig a little harder. But he ended up coming back for a second term and took a Cultural and Regional Studies course, which really ignited his passions.

Geoff ’s social conscience often drew him to protests. By that second semester he was able to attend some protests and actually get credit for them, which was right up his alley. The school worked with him

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Transitions Spring 2014

so that his passions and natural inclinations were encouraged and woven into the curriculum.

How did Geoff ’s college experience compare with yours or your other children’s experiences?

DB: Both of Geoff ’s brothers went to small liberal arts colleges.

Each fit the two of them well, and there are some similarities with Prescott College—being small liberal arts.

SB: Yes. All of our children were much more engaged in the communities where their colleges were located than Dan and I were when we attended college.

DB: But neither of those other two colleges was experientially based or particularly social justice oriented. So, it was quite a different experience for Geoff.

As parents, what was the most meaningful part of Geoff ’s education here?

SB: Watching him mature and develop a passion.

DB: Watching him catch fire and flourish.

SB: He had always been a passionate person, but he gained the tools to implement that passion and received validation for acting on it at Prescott College. I talk to him now and think that in some

ways he is far more mature than I am. He is my hero. Geoff has been through some tremendously difficult things in his volunteer work. He has an ability to react to difficult situations objectively and thoughtfully. He is an incredible human being.

What is Geoff doing today?

SB: Geoff is ABD—all but dissertation—in his doctoral program in political and social geography at the University of Arizona. He and his partner, Sarah, are involved with border research and action groups and teach there. He recently contributed a chapter about a little-known border enforcement program called Operation Streamline to a book focused on contemporary issues in Arizona.

DB: At Prescott College he gained perspective, tools, and the ability to effectively engage the world.

How and when were you asked to join the Board of Trustees here at the College?

DB: It was 2004. The cost of Geoff ’s education at Prescott College was significantly less than it was for our two other children, so we decided to make a gift of the difference. The head of development invited us to meet the President when we came for Geoff ’s graduation.

SB: We thought that was pretty special.

DB: We had breakfast with Dan Garvey and Steven Corey, and after some discussion, Dan said, “You guys really get Prescott College. Would either of you be interested in joining the Board?”

I indicated my interest; and here we are a decade later. I’ve been Chair of the Board before and am currently serving as interim Chair.

Tell us about the Boyce Endowed Scholarship Fund.

DB: That was actually the outcome of the gift that we made when Geoff graduated. It’s a scholarship for a student in the Cultural and Regional Studies Program, with preference to minorities.

In addition to service on the Board and establishing a scholarship, you are part of the Charles Franklin Parker Legacy Society, and were the first donors to our 1966 Society. Why have you been so generous to us?

DB: It’s because of the difference the College has made in both Geoff ’s and our lives. The connections we made through being on the Board are what ultimately influenced us to move to Prescott. It has been and remains an important part of our lives.

So you love this place so much you moved here?

SB: Yeah, in 2010. We had a condo for a couple of years prior to that because we wanted to stretch the times we were here for Board meetings longer and longer. Eventually I started spending the winter months here. January in Michigan versus January in Arizona [holds up hands as if weighing two options] … hmmm [laughs].

What were you doing in Michigan before the move and what keeps you busy here?

DB: I still have part ownership in a 20-person financial advisory business there; so I spend a week in Michigan every month. But while I was Chair of the Board, I got to know Dan Garvey very well. When he announced his retirement, he asked me if I wanted to work with him in building programs at an institute here connected with Prescott College, the Institute for Sustainable Social Change. That was the catalyst I needed to bring us out here. It was the right time, the right place, and the right “ask.”

There is a lot of questioning about the value of a liberal arts education in our society; do you feel a Prescott College education is worth the price in this day and age?

SB: I think it’s a bargain! A good liberal arts education enables a person to think, to discern, to be flexible, and that seems to be what the world needs now.

DB: Prescott College is very well positioned in the world of higher education right now, being totally infused with experiential education and individualized learning. That hands-on approach is where the added value is going to be in the future, not in memorizing content in a particular area. The large lecture halls that you find at state institutions may at some point be replaced by massive online open courses, but what you can’t get out of a lecture hall course or an online video is that experiential component and the critical thinking skills we teach so well here.

SB: The other part is the sense of community and responsibility for one another that students develop at Prescott College. Wilderness Orientation certainly goes a long way to foster that, but there’s also an expectation that students take responsibility for their own learning and for each other, and they very quickly assume that mantle. Community is an incredibly valuable learning tool.

DB: We just need to get the word out about the value proposition we at the College bring to the world. If we do that well, we have nothing to worry about.

SB: It’s not the right place for every student, clearly, but there are so many students that probably fall through the cracks because they are in a college or university that just doesn’t fit them. We want to make sure that as many of those students find Prescott as possible.

DB: We generally prefer to direct our contributions to organizations where it can really make a difference. Sue and I are both University of Michigan graduates. We met there, and we could make the same donations there and it would only be a drop in the bucket. Here, what we give really makes a difference.

KC Boyce, Geoff Boyce ’04, and Stephen Boyce with father Dan at Grand Canyon, November 2013

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Imagine a Different Future Jada Boyd ’13 explores student organizing

A

s the culmination of her studies in the fields of Critical Social Theory and Global Environmental Justice, Jada Boyd’s Senior Project, “Space is the Place: Student of Color Organizing in Higher Education,” set out to explore possibilities for student leadership in increasing the recruitment and retention of students of color at Prescott College. After seven semesters of studying social justice activism and as a founding member of the first student of color–led organization at the College, Students of Color Organizing Against Racism (SCOAR), Jada applied her learning with the goal of “understanding how to make real change, even when everyone didn’t agree on everything.”

Jada started her project by researching models for retaining students of color on college campuses. “I was most impressed by student-initiated retention projects. I brought these ideas to SCOAR and we used them as a model to create working committees with specific goals. One committee joined the college-wide Diversity and Inclusion Committee, another pursued outreach on campus and at the campuses of Yavapai College and Embry-Riddle, and a third developed communications materials.”

The second phase of Jada’s project involved intensive research into the history of anti-racist student organizing on college campuses with a focus on projects that saw themselves as linked to global anti-colonial and liberation struggles. “I explored firsthand perspectives on different parts of the movement, relationships and conflicts between organizations, and was especially excited to learn that groups who participated in the Third World Strike had posed the same kinds of questions and encountered the same kinds of challenges we have faced in building SCOAR here at Prescott College.”

Jada was chosen to present her project at Baccalaureate. Emphasizing the power of the imagination in making social change, her presentation intertwined words and images from the Afro-Futurist movement. Her analysis drew from Queer Performance Studies theorist Jose Munoz’s proposition that “social justice is made possible when we explore the past to understand the present in ways that enable us to imagine a different future.”

Jada’s future plans include pursuing graduate work in the field of critical geography and “staying involved in projects to make change.”

Theorizing the Conditions of Possibility Gregory Brodie ’13 delves into sustainable growth theory

R

ecent grad Greg Brodie reflects on the completion of his Senior Project, “Reframing Growth at Prescott College,” as an incredible learning experience. “Combining learning from my coursework in political studies and my fascination with feminist political-economy, I took on the current debates over growth at Prescott College and ended up challenging the notion that all growth is inherently unsustainable,” he says. “Growth doesn’t have to follow a purely profit-driven trajectory, and this College never has.”

Greg’s Senior Project argues that operational democracy in institutional decision making offers fertile conditions for sustainable growth, which he defines as “development that fulfills the needs of people and the environment.”

The first phase of Greg’s Senior Project involved writing a feasibility study that brought together ideas from the Prescott College 2020 Plan with research on the history of the school. “I also studied theories of development, looked at feasibility studies, conducted focus groups, and interviewed faculty, staff, and administrators. My analysis drew from the works of feminist political economic geographers Julie Graham and Katherine Gibson, who emphasize a focus on the conditions of possibility.

“The most surprising and important thing I learned was that Prescott College has a level of structural democracy that is off the charts in higher education. We have so many opportunities to participate in decision making here, so many opportunities to collectively articulate socially and environmentally sustainable goals, and so many broadly inclusive structures that already exist. All we have to do is participate to be a true, authentic democratic community.”

The only problem Greg identified at Prescott College was a “disconnect” between structural and operational democracy resulting from barriers to communication. “Democratic structures cannot support sustainable community development unless people actively participate. And to participate, we need to communicate.” Greg used this point of discovery to focus on student participation, particularly on the lack of student engagement in governance at Prescott College.

He brought his findings to his classmates, many of who were inspired to take action. Students from across academic departments planned a well-attended town hall meeting and formed an organizing committee to build student participation in governance.

Greg’s future plans include pursuing graduate study in urban planning and continuing to “organize for more participatory, democratic institutions.”

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Please send Class Note submissions to alumni@prescott.edu

Dazzle Ekblad ’98

1960s

Dazzle is happy to announce that she has just completed a dual master’s degree program. She now holds a graduate degree in public administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and one in natural resources policy and management from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Dazzle is currently seeking employment in the field of watershed management. Prescott College friends can contact her at Dazzleekblad@gmail.com.

Kathleen Cornelius ’67 Kathleen has been happily married to her husband Larry for 40 years. She has two great daughters, Casey, a pastry chef, and Amanda, an advisor at UNM, who both live in the Albuquerque area. Her two-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter, Norah, is the light of their lives! Kathleen still keeps in touch regularly with Christopher Estes ’71 in Anchorage. She loves the memory of skinny-dipping in the original campus pool after beaucoup cheap wine with Paige, Aaron, and Tom. She says, “Ah, youth!”

1970s Jess Dods ’70 Jess offers coaching services and maintains a blog at www.jessdodscoaching.com.

Paige Grant ’72 Check out Paige’s new hardcover book for children, Kitten Caboodle, for ages four to forever! The story features an Anglo­ Hispanic family with an introduction to some endearing Spanish expressions. The book is filled with over 40 pages of rich, colorful illustrations based on a Southwestern theme. To order email azropress@gmail.com or find the book on Amazon.com.

Roy Pittman ’73 Roy has a new Kickstarter project showcasing museum-quality prints with an emphasis on the Inca masons’ integration of architecture into the natural landscape. Search Roy Pittman on www.kickstarter.com for more info.

Robin Rivet ’74 Last fall, Robin was awarded the Durrell Maughn Founder’s Award for “urban forestry educator of the year” by the California Urban Forests Council and helped develop the San Diego County Tree Map, which evaluates the ecosystem value of trees.You can find the San Diego County tree map at www.sandiegotreemap.org.

John Annerino ’75 John’s photographic book Colorado Plateau:Wild and Beautiful will be released April 2014, published by Farcounty Press.You can pre-order a copy from Amazon.com.

1980s Melanie Bishop ’86

Ken Leinbach ’99 Ken is the Executive Director of the Urban Ecology Center.

Check out the center at www.urbanecologycenter.org.

Ryan Witbeck ’99 Ryan is maintaining a sustainable vision and is sharing his efforts with the Carve Industries surf team ... bringing the first of many “build your own stand-up paddleboard” classes to consumers in Lyons, Colo. Read more at www.carvesurfboards.com.

2000s Shelby Leigh ’00 Shelby recently created a digital mindfulness album that is a collection of basic guided meditations and information on mindfulness. The album is secular and designed for professionals to recommend to their clients, patients, and students. www.shelbyleigh.bandcamp.com.

Becky White ’00 Becky’s band, Firekeeper, has a new video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9YggE3aSfM.

Dan Bigley ’01 Dan has collaborated with Alaska writer Debra McKinney to write a book that tells the story of his bear attack, his dramatic rescue, and his process of converting tragedy into inner strength. The book, Beyond the Bear, is currently available. Read more at www.danbigley.com/beyondthebear.

Andrew Millison ’97, M.A. ’02

Melanie’s young adult novel, My So­-Called Ruined Life, was released in January, published by Torrey House Press in Utah. This is the first of three books in the Tate McCoy Series. In Book Two, Tate attends Prescott College.

Andrew recently assembled a short video about the water harvesting landscape built at Prescott College in 1998.You can view the video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvje_5IVjmo.

Tracey Loeffler ’88

Bryan’s new book, Off The Map: Fifty-­five Weeks of Adventuring in the Great American Wilderness and Beyond, is his first collection of newspaper articles that recount summers spent along the rougher and more precarious edges of our country’s natural splendor. To order, go to Amazon.com. To read stories from his recent travels, visit www.facebook.com/offthemaponline.

Tracey was recently inducted into the Royal Canadian Geographical Society’s College of Fellows Class of 2013. Tracey, a professor of outdoor recreation at Memorial University of Newfoundland, has scaled all but one of the highest peaks on each of the seven continents, with only Mount Everest left. She’s also the author of More Than a Mountain: One Woman’s Everest.

1990s Alice Loy ’95 Alice cofounded Global Center for Cultural Entrepreneurship, which supports cultural entrepreneurs working to create and scale their enterprises, advocates for the importance of cultural entrepreneurship and the value of a culture economy, and connects a global network of cultural entrepreneurs. Alice believes an entrepreneurial spirit exists in all communities and can be leveraged to address poverty, injustice, and self-determination. More at www.culturalentrepreneur.org.

Brian Drourr ’97 Brian has a flair for taking night photographs. Read more about Brian’s northern lights photography at www.wcax.com/story/23630373/aurora­photographer.

Kelly Fuhrmann ’97 Kelly has been selected as the next superintendent of Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, the home of President Theodore Roosevelt, located in Oyster Bay, N.Y.

Bryan Snyder M.A. ’02

Ian Herrick ’04 Ian recently released a CD, California Delta Blues, available at www.cdbaby.com/cd/coyoteslimwithcolinteurf.

Michael Yarnes ’04 Michael recently opened a new property management firm in Prescott called Rent Right Management Solutions. Learn more at www.RentRightProperties.com.

Brian Maher ’05 Brian is the Director of Operations for North Star Academy and Uncommon Schools, a K­4 school in Newark, N.J., that is working to ensure that children from Newark have access to a college education. If you live in the Newark area and are interested in job opportunities with North Star Academy and Uncommon Schools, Brian invites you to connect with their Associate Director of Recruitment, Lisa Thomas at lnthomas@uncommonschools.org.

Transitions Spring 2014

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Class Notes

Class Notes

Kaitlin Noss ’05 and Michael Belt ’10

Class Notes

Kaitlin and Michael worked as organizers on the recent union organizing success at New York University. Michael served as a UAW organizer and Kaitlin as a graduate student.

Sharon Skinner ’06 Last November Sharon was elected to serve as the President of the Grant Professionals Association National Board of Directors for 2014. She has been an elected member of the board for the past five years, serving for two years as Board Secretary and the past year as the Vice President. The Grant Professionals Association (formerly American Association of Grant Professionals) is a nonprofit membership association that builds and supports an international community of grant professionals committed to serving the greater public good by practicing the highest ethical and professional standards.

Martina Swift ’06 Martina and her husband Jason (Goods) Goodman ’06 have started a thriving bicycle bag business in Seattle, Wash. Martina writes, “Swift Industries was established in 2008 and in true Prescott College fashion was born out of passion and adventure. Our time at Prescott College sculpted our approach to business management and informed our unique views on success. We are forever grateful for these gifts. We wanted to share with you a recent pair of films that were released about our company and our products.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATjnNlJC3qk and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrHW1VRdeRM.

Michael Shay ’07 Michael’s band Texas Express Quintet released a CD in March 2013. See more at www.michaelshay.com.

Harry Apelbaum ’08 Harry is working to create outdoor adventure opportunities.

You can read more about his wilderness program at www.cascadiaexpeditions.com.

Matthew Einsohn M.A. ’12 and Courtney Osterfelt ’04, M.A. ’11 Courtney and Matthew were recently awarded the Prescott Area Young Professionals 2013–2014 Visionary Award for their community service activities.

Ming Wei Koh ’12 Ming Wei published a review of the 2012 book Learning Gardens and Sustainability Education: Bringing Life to School and Schools to Life, by Dilafruz R. Williams and Jonathan D. Brown, in the Journal of Environmental Education.

Todd Miller ’12 Todd’s book, Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security, was released in March, published by City Lights Publishers. Available on Amazon.com. (see Last Word, page 28).

Kristen Ellison M.A. ’13 Kristen recently published an article, “Fostering outdoor learning experiences with urban youth through place-based expeditionary learning,” in the Journal of Outdoor Recreation, Education, and Leadership.

Kelsey Shaw ’13 Kelsey Shaw, also known as Ayla Mae Wild, wrote and illustrated a series of children’s books for her senior project at Prescott College. Check out her book The Princesses I Know and other books at www.lulu.com, search Ayla Mae Wild.

Dan Caston, Ph.D. program ’14 Dan recently published “Biocultural Stewardship: A Framework for Engaging Indigenous Cultures” in Minding Nature.

Clare Hintz, Ph.D. program ’14 Toyota and the National Audubon Society announced that 2013 ToyotaTogetherGreen Fellowships would be awarded to Prescott College Ph.D. candidates Chiara D’Amore ’15 and Clare Hintz. After a competitive nationwide selection process, Chiara and Clare were both selected for the yearlong fellowship program, and each will receive a $10,000 grant.

Janet Ady, Ph.D. program ’15

This past October Mary became a registered instructor for the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International and is actively looking for a position in the high country of Arizona (Show Low area). Mary completed her clinical hours at Horses with H.E.A.R.T. in Chino Valley, Ariz.

Current Ph.D. students Janet Ady, Chiara D’Amore ’15, and Jeremy Solin ’15 presented at the North American Association of Environmental Education annual conference with faculty member Denise Mitten, Ph.D. Janet, Chiara, and Denise presented a poster session, The Healing Power of Nature. On her own, Chiara facilitated a round table session titled Family Time in Nature: Nurturing Bonds and Environmentally Responsible Behavior.

Jodi Gonzales ’09

Chiara D’Amore, Ph.D. program ’15

Mary Croft ’08

Jodi Gonzales, formerly Jodi Brey, graduate of Counseling Psychology and Expressive Art Therapy, has just received her registration as an Art Therapist from the Art Therapy Credentials Board.

2010s Graham Benton ’10 Graham has started a business in Kenya to provide clean cooking fuel (biogas) for rural farmers. Read more at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/clean-and-healthy-cookingfor-everyone-no-exceptions.

Chiara gave a presentation on February 8 at the Maryland Association for Environmental Outdoor Education (MAEOE) annual conference. The presentation, called Family Time in Nature: Nurturing the Capacity to Connect and Care, discussed how family time in nature can help strengthen family bonds and cultivate environmentally responsible behavior.

Jeremy Solin, Ph.D. program ’15

Joyous Thayer ’10

Jeremy presented three sessions at the recent North American Association for Environmental Education conference, October 2013 in Baltimore, Md. The title of the conference was Celebrating the Power of Environmental Education. Jeremy also presented sessions called Green and Healthy Schools Wisconsin, Faces and Places of Northern Wisconsin, and Place-based Education for Sustainable Communities.

Joyous just became a Licensed Associate Counselor with the Arizona Board of Behavioral Health.

Annie Baltzer, M.A. program ’16

Wren Myers ’11 Wren is executive director for Paradigm Permaculture Coalition, a local food coalition in Prescott. More information at www.paradigmpermaculturecoalition.org.

Sarah Drummond ’12 Pomegranate Press published Sarah’s latest children’s book last year.

Raven and the Red Ball is a pictorial story that uses block printed images to describe the adventures of a black lab, a raven, and a red ball on a snowy day. The book is available from Pomegranate’s online shop at www.pomegranate.com and Amazon.com.

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Several students in the graduate Counseling Psychology Program have published or are near publishing: Jacob Midkiff ’14, Kristy Johnsson ’14, Cindy Myron ’15, Joseph McCaffrey ’15, Annie Baltzer ’16, and Jessica Petrone ’15.

Claire Reardon, On-Campus B.A. program ’17 Prescott College was proud to accept and enroll a National Merit Scholar, Claire Reardon, for the Fall 2013 term.

Alumni Reunion Weekend

October 10–12 2014

All alumni and their families are invited to Reunion Weekend 2014: Friday Campus Tour (includes Village Housing) 10 a.m. – noon Sam Hill Gallery Open House 1 – 3 p.m.

Campus Tour (includes Village Housing) 2 – 4 p.m.

Alumni and Faculty Reception 4 – 6 p.m.

Maasai Beading Coop Fundraiser -Time TBD

Movie: Within Reach: A Journey to Find Sustainable Community 9:30 – 11:30 a.m.

Closing Circle 12 – 12:30 p.m.

Registration Fee: Early Bird Registration no later than July 1, 2014 = $75.00/person General Registration after July 1, 2014 = $100.00/person Children 12 and under are free.

Saturday Hike Thumb Butte 8 – 10 a.m.

Coffee, Bagels, and Late Check-In 9 – 10:30 a.m.

Alumni Presentations 10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Wills Writing Workshop 2 – 3 p.m.

Teach-In (Topic TBD) 3:30 – 5 p.m.

Cocktails and Networking 5 – 5:30 p.m.

Alumni Recognition Dinner 5:30- 7:30 p.m.

Fireside Chat 7:30 – 9:30 p.m.

Ron Nairn Memorial Lunch Endowment Fundraiser at ERAU Campus - Time TBD First Name:* Spouse Name: Address Line 1:* City:* Email:* Job Title:

Sunday

Please mark the events you will attend. Fill out the portion below (*Required information) and send the entire sheet along with check payable to Prescott College, memo: Alumni Reunion, to Marie Smith, Prescott College, 220 Grove Ave., Prescott AZ 86301

OR register online at Reunion2014.kintera.org.

Last Name:* State:*

ZIP Code:* Phone: Company Name:

Most Recent Alumni Designation: On-Campus Undergraduate Last Year Attended or Year Graduated:

Maiden Name: Address Line 2: Country: Cell Phone

Limited-Residency Undergraduate

Master of Arts

Ph.D.

Please supply a Class Note and tell us what you are doing these days:*

Additional Options: YES / NO Include a separate check to support the Annual Fund for Academic Excellence and receive a donor ribbon to wear!

For your gift of $25 or more to the Prescott College Annual Fund for Academic Excellence made before June 30, 2014, your name will be entered into a drawing for a two-night, three-day stay in Prescott with $250 provided for travel expenses.

YES / NO

Send us a photo of your time at Prescott College! Please make sure to identify all parties in your photo submission.

Include your full name, address, and last year attended or year graduated.

Number of guests under the age of 12 attending:

Their names are:

Former classmates you’d like us to personally invite to the Reunion Weekend on your behalf (we need full name/emails):

Thank you for registering! More information at www.prescott.edu/alumni.

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Faculty & Staff Notes

Faculty & Staff Notes Walt Anderson, M.S.

Aryn LaBrake ’09, M.A. program ’15

Four Prescott College faculty members are among “the region’s most influential educators” at the spring 2014 Highlands Center for Natural History community nature study classes. They include Carl Tomoff presenting on biotic communities, Mark Riegner on mammals, Walt Anderson on plant life histories, and Lisa Floyd-Hanna on fire ecology. In addition, College Board member Dan Campbell is presenting on pronghorns and grasslands.

Advancement Assistant Aryn LaBrake is the Association of Fundraising Professionals Northern Arizona Diversity Chair and was recently named the Association of Fundraising Professionals Chamberlain Scholar. Aryn will be going to San Antonio on a full scholarship for the National Conference this year.

Joel Barnes ’81, Ph.D. Faculty member and director of the Graduate Teaching Assistant Program Joel Barnes along with Director of Field Operations Rachel Peters completed work on a River Studies and Leadership Certificate (RSLC) offered through the River Management Society in collaboration with Utah State University, Colorado Mesa University, the University of Utah, and the University of Idaho. The details of the RSLC will be added to the Environmental Studies and Adventure Education advising documents this spring.

William J. Litzinger, Ph.D. William retired, joining the Emeritus Faculty, in June 2013. He continues his association with Prescott College and is actively pursuing research on the ethnobiology and ethnoflora of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico along with research into the systematics of the plant family Solanaceae. He contributed the chapter on Solanaceae for Flora of the Four-Corners Region, published in September.

Denise Mitten, Ph.D.

Assistant Housing Manager Bill Barton has accepted the position of Coordinator of Housing and Student Activities effective January 2014. In line with efforts to improve retention and student services, Bill will play a key role in plans to build more activity programs that serve both resident and limited-residency students.

Faculty member Denise Mitten presented Relationship Between Outdoor Experience and Female Body Image at the Coalition for Education in the Outdoors (CEO) Twelfth Biennial Research Symposium, in January 2014. Dr. Mitten’s coauthored book, Human Health and Natural Environments, published by Cabi Press, is planned for distribution this spring.

Board of Trustees Pass Social Justice Resolutions

Julie Munro ’85, M.S.

At the February Board meeting, trustees passed two resolutions one opposing Arizona State Bill 1062, which resulted in a letter from Interim President John Van Domelen to Governor Jan Brewer, urging her to veto the law, which could easily be used for businesses to discriminate against a variety of individuals; and one in favor of divesting College endowment funds from fossil fuel companies. Governor Brewer ended up vetoing SB1062 and study is already underway to accomplish full fossil fuel divestment of the College’s endowments within the next few years.

Faculty member Julie Munro, assisted by current student Minta Allred ’16, graduated 16 certified yoga teachers through the Satya Yoga Teacher Training School, which offers a program through Prescott College. Julie Munro will also be hosting the Association for Experiential Education Rocky Mountain Regional Conference along with a group of Prescott College students this spring at Prescott College.

Craig Chalquist, Ph.D., and Sean Roberts ’05, M.S., CMHC, NCC

Delisa Myles, M.F.A.

Bill Barton

Craig Chalquist and Sean Roberts are the newest mentors in the Adventure-based Psychotherapy and Ecopsychology concentrations within the Counseling Psychology Master of Science Program. Sean comes to the table with exceptionally high standards for clinical mental health interventions and supervision. Craig is a working author and pioneer in the field of ecotherapy.

Instructor of Performing Arts Delisa Myles was awarded a residency at Playa, an artist retreat in the Oregon outback. For her May 2014 residency she will be creating new choreographic work in duet and solo forms.

Courtney Osterfelt ’04, M.A. ’11

Garry is an adjunct instructor in Counseling Psychology. His essay “Hope at the Edge,” about how to live meaningfully without denial during times of climate change, was published in Triquarterly. View it at http://www.triquarterly.org/issues/issue-145/hope-edge.

Founder and Coordinator for the Prescott College–sponsored project Women’s Empowerment Breakthrough, Courtney helped open another local nonprofit organization in 2013. The teen center, called Launch Pad, has been open in a temporary location.

Fundraising is underway to support a permanent location.Visit Launch Pad at 882 Sunset Street in Prescott.

Keith Cross, Ph.D.

Rachel Peters M.A. ’04

Garry Cooper, LCSW

Faculty member Keith Cross has accepted appointment as Associate Dean for Counselor Education. In this capacity, Keith will oversee the various graduate counselor education programs and concentrations at the master’s level, as well as a proposed Ph.D. in Counselor Education.

Jared Dahl Aldern M.A. ’02, Ph.D. ’10 Sponsored associate faculty member Jared Aldern served as an autumn 2013 lecturer in Native American history at Stanford University and as the education coordinator for the National Science Foundation–funded Indigenous Fire Ecology Collaborative. He has also completed adaptations of Native American land tenure curriculum for K-12 schools, posted at www.LandLessons.org and www.LessonsofOurLand.org.

Nina Ekholm Fry, M.S. Sc. Nina presented Equine-assisted Therapy in Higher Education: Perspectives from the U.S.A. at the Horses 4 Humans IV International conference in Singen, Germany, on October 26, 2013.

Tom Fleischner, Ph.D. Tom published an essay, “An Invitation to Attentiveness and Imagination,” as part of the “Questions for a Resilient Future” series on the Center for Humans and Nature website. In this case the question to be addressed was “What does Earth ask of us?”

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Director of Field Operations Rachel Peters presented and participated in a panel discussion as part of a daylong Access Symposium in Washington, D.C., in November 2013 at the annual Association for Outdoor Education and Recreation (AORE) conference.

With participants representing the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the like, Rachel represented national education and academic access interests.

Sheila Sanderson, M.F.A. Faculty member Sheila Sanderson’s poem Though the End Be No Mystery appeared in Spillway 20, Tebot Bach Press.

Marjory Sente Vice President for Institutional Advancement Marjory Sente contributed a chapter about the postal history of the Grand Canyon to the recently published Proceedings of the Third Grand Canyon History Symposium. Alumnus Brad Dimock ’75 was the keynote speaker at the event, which took place in January 2012.

Gary Stogsdill, M.A. Faculty member Gary Stogsdill published a white paper, Something New in Math: Meaningful Mathematics Courses for Liberal Arts Undergraduates, in the September 2013 issue of Global Journal of

Lisa Vandehey Co-Director of Human Resources Lisa Vandehey was thanked for her service to Prescott College on her last day in the office, February 7, 2013. Lisa joined the College in 2008 and managed the support of our employees when they needed it most, and did so selflessly. Lisa has gone on to market her family’s building business,Vandehey Builders.

Tiffany Wynn M.A., LPCC, NCC Tiffany Wynn, Director of the Adventure-based Psychotherapy and Ecopsychology concentrations within the Counseling Psychology Master of Science Program, was named chair for the Council on Research and Evaluation within the AEE. Along with several colleagues, she has been instrumental in coordinating field experiences for students in her directed concentrations, including backpacking the Mogollon Rim and a planned trip to the Superstitions this spring.

Faculty & Staff Notes

Science Frontier Research. His new article “Being Reasonable: Using Brainteasers to Develop Reasoning Ability in Humanistic Math Courses” was selected for publication in the July 2014 issue of Journal of Humanistic Mathematics.

Corrections • Tony Brown of the Ecosa Institute spells his full first name Antony, no “h” • Janis Rutschman donated to Prescott College at the Thumb Butte Society Level ($1,000-$2,499) • Tom Robinson ’73 and Joan Wellman donated to Prescott College at the Founder’s Club Level ($500-$999)

Graduate Scholarship Available Thinking about Graduate School at Prescott College?

You could qualify for an award if you graduated from or currently attend:

Prescott College Any Eco League School Any school in the Consortium for Innovative Environments in Learning (CIEL) Complete a Prescott College graduate admissions application by published deadlines to apply. www.prescott.edu/apply

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The Last Word

The Last Word

Todd Miller’s Border Patrol Nation

Alumnus’s new book maps expanding social geography of border-industrial complex

Todd Miller, U.S.-Mexico Border

By Zoe Hammer, Ph.D. Todd Miller ’12 completed his Bachelor of Arts in the Limited-Residency Program at Prescott College in 2014.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with him in Tucson to talk about his new book, Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security. This meticulously researched work of investigative journalism represents Miller’s decades of experience working in Mexico and the United States. As an academic researcher myself, studying the militarization and expanding global reach of U.S. law enforcement, I have followed Miller’s work in the New York Times,The Nation, and other distinguished media sources.

I was especially thrilled to have the opportunity to meet and talk with him.

ZH: Give us an overview of Border Patrol Nation. What did you set out to learn and what was your guiding frame?

TM: The book looks at the post 9-11 expansion of the Border Patrol and its surrounding apparatus: what it means physically on the border; its expansion into an industrial complex, including corporate involvement and privatization; and its geographic expansion, to the northern border, into the Caribbean, into interior enforcement, and the export of U.S.-style immigration control policies, practices, and technologies abroad.

My guiding frame was inspired by a line in President Eisenhower’s famous speech about the emergence of a “military-industrial complex”; he described it as “new to the American experience” and warned of the “not so obvious impacts”—economic, social, political, and even spiritual impacts. What I found was that this expansion is changing who we are. The whole idea of sealing the border is very new, but has become as natural as breathing. It has become an assumed need within the American imagination. I find it incredible how this has happened.

ZH: Given that you have been involved with border issues, as a human rights observer, as an immigration justice activist, and as a journalist since the late 1990s, what did you learn that surprised you in the process of researching this book?

TM: Everyplace I went, there was a surprise. I went to South Carolina, Deming, N.M., the O’odham Nation, the Dominican Republic, and to the northern border. That was the most surprising—the enforcement build-up on

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the U.S.-Canadian border is the most underreported part of this story in the national media. The build-up, since 9-11, has been even more rapid there than on the southern border. In Erie, Pa., the official international border is located 12 miles into Lake Erie, so that justifies Border Patrol presence in a city nowhere close to a real border crossing. I found intensive collaboration between the Border Patrol and local police everywhere—I found checkpoints throughout southwest Detroit, outside laundromats in Wayne County, N.Y., where Border Patrol agents routinely board busses and trains and demand everybody’s papers. There are now eight high-tech surveillance towers along the St. Clair River between Port Huron and Detroit, equipped with Secure Border Initiative network cameras and radar.

Internal enforcement has taken on a life of its own, as well. South Carolina has actually created the nation’s first state “Border Patrol” (what they officially call the Immigration Enforcement Unit), which collaborates with law enforcement in the state. South Carolina police have done things like set up a checkpoint blocking the entrance to a mobile home park with a large community of immigrant workers. In another case study, I met a former Border Patrol agent in New Mexico who had been fired and ritually humiliated by his fellow agents for saying he was proud to be Mexican and that he supported the legalization of marijuana as part of the solution to the immigration problem.

The hardest chapter for me was on the O’odham Nation, though. The build-up of the Border Patrol and militarization there has been so dramatic that almost everyone there—people with all kinds of different political stances—describe it in terms of an occupation. It is being experienced as an unfinished conquest, ongoing since 1853.

ZH: What do you see as the relationship between investigative journalism and movements for social justice?

TM: As a journalist, I am interviewing everyone and trying to leave preconceived notions behind; trying to tell the story as it is. The frames that I end up using and the stories I choose to highlight emerge from the perspectives of the people I interview. Each place you go, each chapter, has its own heat.

As far as social justice movements and political activism go, the way they are related to investigative journalism is that the stories provide the information that is needed for critical thinking. I write with the assumption that people are smart.

ZH: What do you want people to take away from Border Patrol Nation?

TM: In the very last chapter, I go back to my hometown, Niagara Falls, N.Y. It is very similar to Detroit. The town is crumbling. Schools are closing, services are getting cut. There is almost no medical care available. Housing is falling to the

Bill Beckwith ’98

Elle Metz­Titre ’13

Bill Beckwith, contractor and co-host of HGTV’s Curb Appeal, died in a motorcycle accident at age 38 on December 2, 2013.

At Prescott College he studied dance, ecopsychology, and adventure education. A memorial service for Bill was held in China Camp State Park, San Rafael, Calif., on December 7.

Only a few days into the Fall Semester 2013, one of the Counseling Psychology master’s degree program’s brightest students, Elle Metz­Titre, was killed in an automobile accident.

There was a remembrance ceremony at the January 2014 Master of Arts Colloquium, where people shared stories and laughter regarding Elle and her time with Prescott College. The Counseling Psychology faculty wanted to honor her by sharing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, Nature:

Maria del Rosario Riojas ’94 Maria passed away peacefully on October 5, 2013, after a four­-and­-a­ half-year battle with ovarian cancer.

She is survived by her husband, Jose Luis; her children,Veronica R. Bottke and Joe L. Riojas Jr.; seven grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Maria is also survived by her mother and siblings.

Doug Hanson ’74 Douglas B. Hanson, Ph.D., 61, died June 17, 2013, in Huntington, W.Va., after a long illness due to complications of a bone marrow transplant received in 2007 to treat leukemia. He was a retired research scientist, archaeologist, and Renaissance man who deeply loved his family and friends. At Prescott College his friends remember him fondly as a consummate field worker who loved physical anthropology, Southwestern archaeology, contemporary music, and reading. His partner, Connie Kinsey Leinen, and his daughter, KT, have established a memorial fund for the Douglas B. Hanson Anthropology Book Collection at the Prescott College Library.

Nature

As a fond mother, when the day is o’er, Leads by the hand her little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led, And leave his broken playthings on the floor, Still gazing at them through the open door, Nor wholly reassured and comforted By promises of others in their stead, Which, though more splendid, may not please him more; So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest so gently, that we go Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

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Cover: Border Patrol Nation

ground everywhere. It is tragic.Yet at the same time, the one thing that is growing is the increasing presence of the Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security.

We are told by our government that we need the Border Patrol to be protected; to be safe from a perpetual enemy. But when you look around Niagara Falls, you see people losing everything that is basic to real security: homes, jobs, education, and even the arts. We are at a juncture in this country when it is time to question what we are taking for granted as “security” and where we are going.

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